Trash Pseudoscience Health BS That Celebs Have Sprung On Us
To become a doctor, you need to go through years of education and training (and accumulate a horrifying amount of debt). But to become a wellness guru, a beacon of "health information" people turn towards in the age of insulin-crowdfunding and gouging copayments, you just need to be a celebrity who's looking for another revenue stream.
These celebs have access to some of the cleanest foods, along with the greatest health care, personal trainers, and estheticians in the world, but are more than happy to tell loyal fans that it was actually a simple fix that helped them attain their wellness goal. And would you look at that; the product, which isn't approved by the FDA or backed by any peer-reviewed scientific research, is available right in their shop ...
Gwyneth Paltrow Has Recommended Everything From Bowel-Rupturing Coffee Enemas To Info Wars-Backed "Supplements"
It might feel like shooting fish in a barrel when it comes to trashing Gwyneth Paltrow and her snake oil lifestyle brand GOOP. After all, we all know that putting a porous jade egg up your vagina is one way to make your body a petri dish of bacteria, right? And we've gone over how Gwyneth's affiliate marketing website lifestyle brand got a Netflix series in January 2020, but Her Royal Goopness shows no signs of slowing down.
Let's go over some of Goop's Greatest Pseudoscience Hits. There was the time Goop published a Morning Matcha Smoothie recipe that called for tocos ... which contain high levels of arsenic. In 2018, she promoted a $135 self-administer coffee enema kit to eliminate "mucoid plaque," a non-existent sludge that Goop claims a coffee enema would suck right out of your butt. Unfortunately, performing this masochistic task can lead to perforated bowels or renal failure.
And there's the goopiest Goop of them all: the supplements Paltrow hawks. Take, for instance, Moon Juice's Sex Dust, which contains "ancient ingredients from ho shou wu to cacao and maca send sensitivity and power to all the right places, supporting primordial energy and vital essence." These mystical, unproven ingredients can also be found in a product called "Super Male Vitality," which right-wing conspiracy theorist and walking dumpster fire Alex Jones hawks on his website, Info Wars. That's right, Neo-liberal yuppies and chemtrail believers are both paying out the wahoo for products marketed explicitly to exploit their fragile egos. That's one point to the Horseshoe Theory.
The Kardashians Repeatedly Peddle Dangerous Diet lollipops, Weight Loss Shakes, and Teas - AKA Laxatives
Say what you will about the Kardashians, but you have to give credit where credit's due: they know how to pump out trash for millions. Case in point? All of the diet products the sisters have promoted on their Instagrams over the years, like the Flat Tummy Co. products. The products are so dangerous that the FTC stepped in to investigate. Consumers who used the products too frequently started experiencing potassium deficiencies, which can lead to possible respiratory failure.
"Dietary supplements sold for detox or weight loss are snake oil, plain and simple," Dr. S. Bryn Austin, a Harvard Medical School professor, told The Guardian. "The liver and kidneys already do the so-called detox, and adding junk products into the diet only makes their job harder. And weight-loss claims for these products are either outright sham or a result of adulteration of the products with potentially dangerous stimulants, laxatives or diuretics."
Of course, the detox and diet ads are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the Kardashian SponCon Dynasty. Khloe posted about a tooth whitening kit, even though she has stain-resistant veneers. Kim peddled controversial morning sickness pills when she wasn't pregnant, and the FDA slammed her for not mentioning the very real side effects. Kylie promoted waist-training, which is wearing a corset that can cause organ damage and broken ribs, right after giving birth. The Kardashian-Jenners are worth a combined $1.5 billion.
Adele and MMA star Conor McGregor Allegedly Use The Sirtfood Diet To "Activate Skinny Genes" (Which Don't Exist)
When a celebrity goes through a body transformation, especially a lady celeb, media outlets never credit a steady, healthy diet, exercise, or other lifestyle adjustments. There's always a magic bullet, a solution to weight loss that no one has marketed thought of before. When singer Adele stepped out at the beginning of 2020 looking a little more svelte, she reportedly credited the Sirtfoot Diet. It's a meal plan that allows you to lose weight and still eat dark chocolate and drink wine!
But this miracle diet isn't just for lady-folk. Big, strong, tough men like MMA fighter Conor McGregor also swear by it, saying that he is "eating like a king these days thanks to the Sirtfood diet."
So what is this miracle diet that helps you melt away pounds, but ALSO keeps you in peak physical form for MMA? The idea is to eat certain foods to activate SIRT1, which "reduces oxidative stress" and makes you age slower. The problem with this claim, according to Mike Roussell, Ph.D. and nutritional consultant, is, "You can't possibly consume enough of the foods recommended by this diet to increase sirtuins."
"To get 20 milligrams of resveratrol , you would need to drink more than 40 glasses of wine," Russell told Spartan. So, yes, your body will stop aging if you follow this diet ... but that because you'll die of alcohol poisoning trying to achieve the target number.
Tom Brady's TB12 lifestyle brand book preaches the importance of "muscle pliability"
Deflategate. Weird photo shoots. Leaving his pregnant girlfriend for a literal Victoria's Secret model. There are already so many reasons as to why Tom Brady's got the most punchable face in the world. And you can add pseudoscience profiteer to the list.
To keep his body and bank account in optimum condition, Brady uses and sells the TB12 method. It's a lifestyle thing that includes eating the "right foods" that are "anti-inflammatory" and drinking "half your body weight" in water to prevent sunburn.
But Brady doesn't just make up science about ultraviolet rays -- he makes up words, too. Or at least his ghostwriter does. "Muscle pliability," the term Brady uses to describe the perfect texture of muscle for peak physical performance, is "balderdash," according to exercise scientists. Brady's ghostwritten book also delves into how you can allegedly change your body's pH with your diet -- specifically, diet products and supplements you can buy from Brady's online store.
"It's next to impossible -- in fact, I can't think of an instance -- where people have been able to change their blood pH with diet," Stuart Phillips, a member of the kinesiology department at McMaster University, told Vox. Stop pulling stuff out of your butt chin, Brady.
Joe Rogan Promoted The "Carnivore Diet" That He Admitted Gave Him "Explosive Uber Diarrhea"
Have you ever seen the hashtag #MeatHeals on a friend's Instagram post? Go ahead and unfollow them, because chances are they believe a strictly carnivorous diet -- as promoted by Joe Rogan and Jordan Peterson -- can do everything from making you "immune to sunburn" to cure autoimmune disorders.
In January 2020, in honor of "World Carnivore Month," meathead Joe Rogan announced to his army of goons that he would be consuming an all-meat diet for 30 days. The former Fear Factor host and current conspiracy theorist was inspired by noted moron Jordan Peterson, who was inspired by his daughter, Mikhaila, who is not a doctor, dietitian, or scientist -- people who have stated to Buzzfeed News that there is no evidence this diet works. Mikhalia swears by an all-beef diet, which she claims cures everything from depression to rheumatoid arthritis. Oh, and it also cured Peterson's gum disease, which he had apparently just been letting fester in his mouth up until this point.
All three of them stuck to this unhealthy diet even though it gave them massive amounts of diarrhea. And from the way Rogan described it in a very detailed Instagram post, it sounds like something straight out of Fear Factor:
"I'm not sure diarrhea is an accurate word for it, like I don't think a shark is technically a fish ... It's a different thing, and with regular diarrhea I would compare it to a fire you see coming a block or two away and you have the time to make an escape, whereas this carnivore diet is like out of nowhere the fire is coming through the cracks, your doorknob is red hot, and all hope is lost."
In case you aren't convinced that eating an all-meat diet is, in fact, a very bad idea, Jack Gilbert, faculty director at the University of Chicago's Microbiome Center, puts it in layman's terms: "Physiologically, it would just be an immensely bad idea. A terribly, terribly bad idea."
Top image: JStone/Shutterstock
